JENSEN LA VENDE

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for Port-of-Spain North/St Ann’s West Stu­art Young SC says arm­ing home­own­ers is not the be-all and end-all to ad­dress­ing home in­va­sions.

Dur­ing the sec­ond read­ing of the Home In­va­sion (Self De­fence of Prop­er­ty) Bill, 2025, yes­ter­day, Young trained his prover­bial guns on At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie, say­ing he was once an armed home­own­er who was robbed dur­ing a home in­va­sion.

Re­spond­ing to Je­re­mie that the pro­posed leg­is­la­tion is cat­e­goris­ing a new of­fence, Young said a new leg­is­la­tion is not need­ed, but mere­ly an amend­ment to the ex­ist­ing law. He fur­ther stat­ed that arm­ing cit­i­zens is not the an­swer to crime, as Je­re­mie him­self was robbed of his li­censed firearm in a home in­va­sion, a clear in­di­ca­tion that armed home­own­ers are not ex­empt from be­ing at­tacked and dis­armed from stand­ing their ground.

Young, who was vis­i­bly up­set dur­ing his con­tri­bu­tion, said the Gov­ern­ment brought to Par­lia­ment a dif­fer­ent bill from what they shared dur­ing their pub­lic con­sul­ta­tions.

“They have tak­en out the pro­vi­sion that re­quires a spe­cial ma­jor­i­ty. And in that pro­vi­sion, it says they in­fringe our con­sti­tu­tion­al rights and our en­trenched rights. The ques­tion that aris­es im­me­di­ate­ly is, why are you mis­lead­ing the pop­u­la­tion, even in what you’ve brought and what you went to them with? And sec­ond­ly, but more im­por­tant­ly, why are you tak­ing out the need for con­sti­tu­tion­al pro­tec­tion? And they may come here with all sorts of rea­sons, but those are the first red flags that we face as we look at this leg­is­la­tion here to­day.”

In his con­tri­bu­tion, Je­re­mie said home in­va­sions be­came so per­va­sive in so­ci­ety that or­di­nary cit­i­zens across the coun­try were left feel­ing ter­ri­fied and jad­ed by the hor­ror sto­ries.

“Home in­va­sions in Trinidad and To­ba­go are typ­i­cal­ly for the pur­pose of and or re­sult in oth­er se­ri­ous crimes, such as mur­ders, crimes against a per­son, bur­glar­ies, and rob­beries. Yet there is no ac­tu­al crim­i­nal of­fence or cat­e­gori­sa­tion of crime for the home in­va­sion it­self. This is a mat­ter that has been ad­dressed in many ter­ri­to­ries, Ire­land, Cana­da, many of the Fed­er­at­ed States, and ter­ri­to­ries in Aus­tralia.”

He fur­ther ac­cused the Op­po­si­tion of be­ing hyp­o­crit­i­cal, say­ing that while they are sup­pos­ed­ly against cit­i­zens hav­ing guns, they had mul­ti­ple.

“Prac­ti­cal­ly all of the mem­bers on the front bench op­po­site have not one, not two, not three, some­times four and five firearms. Yet they tell or­di­nary cit­i­zens, none for you, and they get to the point where they have to do­nate to the po­lice weapons, which are of du­bi­ous le­gal­i­ty. Mr Speak­er, when we speak of home in­va­sions in nar­ra­tive terms, the fact is that it is not up to now by it­self a pros­e­cutable of­fence in and of it­self.”

In 2023, St Ann’s MP Stu­art Young SC said he do­nat­ed a gun to the po­lice.

“I can con­firm that I do­nat­ed a le­gal weapon to the TTPS. At all times, I have abid­ed by the laws of Trinidad and To­ba­go. My ac­tion was of my own vo­li­tion, and I stand by it.” Young said then and did not give de­tails about his de­ci­sion to do­nate the weapon.

In a Face­book post, Op­po­si­tion Chief Whip Mar­vin Gon­za­les re­ject­ed the claim by Je­re­mie about Op­po­si­tion mem­bers own­ing mul­ti­ple guns, say­ing it was reck­less and placed the lives of Op­po­si­tion mem­bers in jeop­ardy.

“This is the most rep­re­hen­si­ble and reck­less be­hav­iour again be­ing dis­played by the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al. It is not down­right false and ma­li­cious, but en­dan­gers our per­son­al and fam­i­ly lives. The pub­lic must now ask the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al to state the law­ful means by which he now gets ac­cess to con­fi­den­tial in­for­ma­tion that should be with­in the sole do­main of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice.”

He fur­ther warned cit­i­zens should take care­ful note of the Gov­ern­ment us­ing con­fi­den­tial in­for­ma­tion, call­ing on the coun­try to be vig­i­lant “in pro­tect­ing our cher­ished democ­ra­cy.”

Young al­so took a jab at De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge for re­peat­ing a state­ment he made dur­ing the con­sul­ta­tion phase that home­own­ers can shoot in­vaders in the back and be pro­tect­ed by law. He said that “has to be one of the worst pieces of ad­vice that can be giv­en to any law-abid­ing cit­i­zen.”

Dur­ing his con­tri­bu­tion, Sturge said any ob­jec­tion to the pro­posed law could be an­swered by sim­ply read­ing the bill. He added that all the pro­vi­sions and pro­tec­tions al­ready ex­ist as com­mon law, which is now be­ing brought in­to post-colo­nial times by cre­at­ing leg­is­la­tion to al­low po­ten­tial vic­tims to de­fend them­selves.

Mean­while, Port-of-Spain South MP Kei­th Scot­land, in his con­tri­bu­tion, claimed Je­ho­vah’s Wit­ness­es could be vic­tims of a vi­o­lent end if the law is passed. Scot­land made the com­ment as urged cau­tion in rolling out the leg­is­la­tion.

“It could be a guest who re­fus­es to leave, a ten­ant in a land­lord-ten­ant dis­pute, a per­son en­ter­ing by mis­take, even some­one seek­ing shel­ter. This is the mis­chief of this bill. In oth­er words, or­di­nary so­cial life is be­ing equat­ed with vi­o­lent crime. Some­one pre­sent­ing those Watch­tow­er mag­a­zines, Mr Speak­er, what hap­pens to them? Mr Speak­er, this bill is per­ni­cious, and it has far-reach­ing con­se­quences.”